Small Group Excitement!

Tonight we get to have our first small group meeting in England! It's been a long time since we have served in this way at church. We have made some of our closest friends through small groups and are looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for us here in England.

We have 3 other families joining us...we'll have 15 kids and 8 adults between us! I'm praying it will go smoothly and everyone will be blessed in the end. 

 I pray you have a blessed weekend everyone.

Beautiful Braaten is 11 today!!

Happy Birthday, Braaten! We love you so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much!! That's how Grandma used to say it to me and I always loved that.

This post is to honor you on your special day. I remember being pregnant with you, anticipating your birth, and now you are 11. Wow! You are changing and maturing very quickly and are a sweet, loving girl who loves the Lord. 

Enjoy your day, Honey.

This is Braaten's  school picture for 5th grade.

Braaten took some tennis lessons back in October. 

Beautiful sisters & best friends (Braaten and Melanie in Italy)

We bought this adorable hat in York, England. I love it!

Sisters at the State Championship game for Bellmont vs. Evansville Memorial.  Bellmont won 28 to 14. 

The girls were helping me wash a very dirty dog.

Making Christmas cookies.

Nice one!

Daddy's Little Girl. 

All bundled up in Wales.

"Hey Mom, take a picture". :-)

And this is Braaten last year when she turned 10. 

Lord, I pray that Braaten will continue to grow in her walk with you. May you guide her in all her steps. Thank you for loving her and for calling her to you. She is a precious gift and we are blessed that you chose us to love and nurture her. May all the glory be given to you.  Amen. 

Honorable Mention

Before the holidays, I had been journaling in my blog about all of the adventures our family had while visiting the United States. Our trip was in November and was a whirlwind tour, as it were, of New Jersey, Michigan, and Indiana. 

I had written a post about the NJ travels with my family and friends. I have yet to talk about our Michigan part of the journey. We have some of our greatest friends there that I'll be writing about soon.

After we enjoyed a brief visit in NJ, we went to Michigan and then Indiana. It is there that I finally got to meet my fabulous new friend, Pam, that I really got to know through blogging. 

She happens to be a high school classmate of my husband's. The way we met was through a mutual friend that had received a travel update e-mail from me, that she forwarded to Pam. Pam was kind enough to write to me, introduce herself, and then recommended that I start a blog. I was reluctant at first, but then with lots of help from her, I moved forward, and tried my hand at it. 

If you visit her blog, you'll meet a loving, kind, open, and honest, Christian woman that is a mom to 6 great kids. She'll inspire you to grow in your faith. Shawn and I met her for breakfast the day after we arrived in Indiana and enjoyed good food and great conversation. 

Pam, you are more beautiful in person and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together. I hope Tara from "Life with 6 kids" will join us, too. She is also an Indiana girl. :-)

Reflections of 2008

We have had a great year all in all!

In the beginning of 2008, we were getting used to the idea that we were going to be moving far away. Shawn had just found out about 6 weeks prior that Kelloggs would like to send him overseas to England to do R & D there. It was actually on Christmas day last year that we broke the news to the kids. There was a mixed reaction, but generally a sense of excitement.

Braaten turned 10 in January - double digits!! That's a milestone birthday. That means in just a few days, she'll be turning 11! Wow!

The next few months were filled with preparations for the big move. We had a house to prepare to sell, two kitties to find a new home for, a dog to find a temporary home for, and trips back home to say goodbye to family and friends. 

In April, I took my dear friend, Sarah, back home to NJ with me to meet friends and family there. She really wanted to see where I grew up and also to enjoy the Big Apple. We had a grand time. We even went to see The Lion King on Broadway with my sister, Denise. Denise also took us on a whirlwind tour of NYC in her car. She can drive with the best of them! I would even venture to say that if she aspired to be a NYC cab driver, she would be one of the best!

Later we parked our car and walked through a part of Central Park. Having grown up so close to New York, you would not have guessed that it was my first time visiting the park. It was beautiful and I loved every minute of it. 

In May, we had movers come to our house to pack everything up - some went to storage, some was packed  to be sent by "air" shipment and the rest was packed up into "sea" storage. The air freight would get to us in a couple of weeks and the sea container would reach England in 6 weeks or more. It took the movers 5 whole days to sort everything out. That's a long time!

Once that was all done, we stayed at the Holiday Inn in Battle Creek for 4 or 5 days until we hopped on a plane to Manchester. That week was filled with difficult goodbyes, but we made it through. Austin had a baseball game and said farewell to all of his friends that he'd been playing sports with for 4 or 5 years. That was really hard for me to see. I was the one crying as the boys were running around the bases all together, while jumping on each other's backs and falling down. They were really sweet. 

I've been blogging since about August as you have probably read, and God has seen us through every aspect of this journey. 

He is my strength and my song. Without Christ, I believe this journey would have been so much more difficult. Actually, without Him, I would be nothing. Shawn and I rely upon Him to see us through. We want to do His will and walk in His ways.

That's my prayer for 2009, that we would do as it says in Matthew 6:33 - "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." 

God Bless!

You're Gonna Miss This Moment

Goodness! There is so much I'm going to miss someday concerning my kids and our family. There are things they used to do that I miss even now. 

But the one I really want to talk about is this. On Christmas day as our overly excited children waited to open even their first present, my husband, Shawn, asked them to listen to something he wanted to share. I was sitting on the couch near him, not knowing what he was about to say, as he began to share this.

He said something like: Guys, these Christmases we have together are really special, with all of us together and opening presents while you are little. One day we won't be able to be all together in one place, so always remember these times. These Christmases together. And remember that the seven of us will always be together in our hearts at Christmas. 

Meanwhile, as he is saying this, I am grabbing the camera as my eyes well up, and tears begin to freely flow. I still snap the picture. I was practically bawling by the time he was done.  

As he was saying all of these beautiful words to remind us all of the reality, I thought, wow, I am gonna miss this. Going to church and hearing the Christmas story told, singing Christmas carols, going shopping to find just the right gift, opening the door to the postman to receive a gift that came from overseas, baking tons and tons of cookies to share with friends and neighbors, getting Christmas cards and letters, and decorating the house. There is so much excitement that comes with the celebration of Christ's birth in our home.

At breakfast that same morning, we had our children tell us the Christmas story from Luke in the Bible. They did a great job! 

This particular Christmas morning, one of our children woke up at 4:30am and could not get back to sleep for anything. Thankfully she was really quiet and didn't wake the others. The rest of the kids woke up around 5:30 and we told them the night before that we would be opening presents at 6:45am sharp. They did amazingly well keeping quiet while waiting with baited breath to see how they were blessed.

I am really going to miss Christmases with small children.   

To read more, "You're Gonna Miss This Moment" posts, go to Pam's blog. You'll be blessed.